Yippie! My 50th book of the year! Which means I’ve met my 43 Things goal, and it’s only June. Pretty cool.

This is the first in the “Vampire Huntress” series, set in L.A., and following the life of a young woman who is a Neteru, or vampire huntress. It’s similar to the idea in Buffy – the slayer is a chosen one, and there are “Guardians” working with her to train her and keep her safe. Something at the beginning of the book really caught my interest and pulled me in:

“From the twelve scattered tribes, twelve Guardian Councils were mission-annointed and made up of honorable, courageous men and women of all positive faiths and all races, working as a united front, quietly moving behind the scenes, each battling evil in their own corner of the globe. The balance could not be easily tipped; their fight was vigilant. But just as the forces of evil had human helpers to reinforce the negative spheres of soul-killing influence, the forces of good had The Guardians . . . those that held the line no matter what challenges befell them. They would not allow The Light to be extinguished.”

That was enough to catch my interest. The setting and characters are very urban – our heroine, Damali, is a “spoken word artist,” and there are night clubs and organized crime and drug dealers. The story is interesting, but I did find that at times, the author’s frequent use of slang was a distraction, rather than something which added to the characterizations. On the whole, though, it was interesting enough that I’ve ordered the second book from the library. I do want to see what’s going to happen next. 6/10 or maybe 7/10.